FILE PHOTO: An election worker prepares absentee ballots for the upcoming general election before they are mailed to voters, at Wake County Board of Elections headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S. September 5, 2024. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake
CNN’s Harry Enten walked through three possible Senate outcomes the day before the midterms, saying new New York Times polls point to a “blue tsunami” — but that the range of results is wide.
Enten said The Times polls show Democrats ahead in Michigan by 11, Texas by 7, Maine and Ohio by 6, and Kansas by 5, with Alaska and Iowa at Democrats plus 1, “well within the margin of error.” He said that would turn the Senate from 47 Democrats to 54, including a flip in North Carolina, where he said Roy Cooper is “blowing the water out,” though there’s no poll from that state.
Jake Tapper raised the question of whether the polls can be trusted, noting that the Cook Political Report just moved Michigan’s Senate race from toss-up to lean Democratic, and that critics say polls underestimate Republicans.
“There it is,” Enten said. He noted that in close races in the Trump era, Republicans beat their final Senate poll average by 4.1 points, which, if repeated, would produce a 51-49 Republican Senate, and doesn’t count Susan Collins’ history of outperforming her polls in Maine.
Then he offered “one little last nugget”: in the 2022 midterms, Democrats outperformed their final poll averages in all the states. If that happened again, he said, it could mean “a complete blowout with 55 seats.”
“The bottom line is this: going into tomorrow, advantage team blue,” Enten said, “but the wide range of possibilities is right there in front of you.”
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